In This Skin (25 page)

    Also plunging down the freeway on-ramp sped a flatbed truck. Its driver had his eyes over his shoulder, concentrating on finding a space in the flow of vehicles on the freeway. He didn't notice the running teenagers charging alongside the road. Ellery realized that his pursuers had to jump onto the dirt strip at the side of the road to avoid being smashed on the truck's fender. The trucker slowed sharply; air brakes squealed.

    He'd seen a space in the traffic where he was going to slot his vehicle.

    The cab came level with Ellery, then passed, the engine growling as the trucker applied the gas. The flatbed came alongside Ellery It was a low-loader and carried, of all things, a police car tied by heavy-duty ropes to the back.

    It's now or never. Grunting with effort, Ellery grabbed one of the restraining ropes and flipped up onto the back of the truck so he laid flat on its boards alongside the police car. The concussion knocked the air from his lungs. His shoulder took a wrench while the leap twisted his foot so hard the pain blazed up his calf muscle.

    The trucker never noticed. He found the gap in the traffic and sped away Hair rippling in the slipstream, Ellery lifted his head from where he lay clinging to the rope. Logan's crew ran on even then as if they somehow hoped to catch the truck, but one by one they stopped, then leaned forward, supporting the weight of their torsos by gripping their knees. Even though they were exhausted, Ellery could see frustration rage across their faces. Some of the gang flipped him the finger. One shook his fist. Logan merely stared. Even from this distance, Ellery recognized the promise of revenge his gaze held.

    

    

    ”You're due in class this morning,”Robyn told Noel. ”I'll fix you breakfast while you shower.”

    ”I'm not going.”

    ”You've got to go, Noel. You'll drop behind.”

    ”I'll fix it,”he told her. ”I can work on an assignment here in the apartment.”

    Robyn watched him lay a folder on the kitchen table. Beside it he set pencils and a pen. Concern filled her. ”Noel. We can't let this affect your studies.”

    ”Thank you.”He smiled. ”But there's no way on earth I'm leaving you alone after what happened yesterday. What if the guy with the…”He made rotating motions with his fingers near his mouth to allude to the creature with the petal-like profusion of lips. ”What if that thing tried to get in here while I was out?”

    ”I'm okay, Noel, I'm sure it's long gone. We should-”

    But he wasn't listening. ”Jesus. My mind keeps going back to it. That thing had a hold of you. What if Benedict hadn't interrupted what… whatever it planned to do to you? My blood runs cold just at the thought of it.”

    Robyn put her arms around him. ”Listen. I know you care and you're concerned for me… knowing that makes me love you even more. But this apartment's like a fortress. No one can get in here if the doors are locked.”

    ”But it's going to be hard to walk out of here, knowing you're alone.”

    ”I'll be safe. I've got Percy the Pistol, remember?”

    Even his frown gave way to a smile at the jokey reference to the gun.

    She sandwiched his face between the palms of her hands and brought it down so she could kiss him. ”And what is essential-no, vital!-you've got your studies. Be brilliant. Pass your exams. Qualify Then we can make sure Noel Junior has a great start in life.”

    Smiling now, he relaxed. ”Yeah, and we've got to open Junior's college fund.”

    ”Exactly." ”Even so, I'm not going to class today. No, don't try to talk me out of it, Robyn. Crazy horses wouldn't drag me away from this place today”

    He'd barely gotten the sentence from his lips when a fierce pounding started on a door somewhere downstairs.

    ”That's the door to the lobby,”she said, noticing the way the color drained from Noel's cheeks.

    Grim-faced, he nodded. ”Looks as if we've got a visitor!'

    Robyn watched him get the gun.

    

    

    At the same time Noel collected the revolver from the bedroom in the Luxor, Benedict West stood in his own apartment, gazing at the black slab of plastic that housed the Betamax tape.

    ”Okay, Benedict, old buddy. Are you going to stare at this all day, or are you going to watch it?”

    The tape seemed to pulsate in his hands. He sensed that it contained the answer to what had happened to Mariah Lee in the Luxor ten years ago, and explained what had befallen Robyn Vincent just hours ago.

    ”Hell, I should get some sleep.”Only he knew down to the roots of his bones that he'd never sleep until he watched this damn tape. But then, what he saw revealed there in those grainy shots might chase away sleep for a good time to come. He was hunting for answers. And yet he suspected the answers contained in this tape might be very dark ones indeed. Taking a deep lungful of air, he switched on the TV, slotted the cassette into the machine, then depressed the button marked ”play.”

    

    

    From where Robyn stood on the stairs, she could see a pale face through the glass strips in the door to the lobby With the glass heavily frosted, the face was a distorted mask set with two overly large eyes.

    The lower half of the face was a mass of red. Instantly she recalled the figure that had lunged at her in the forest. The thing that had the face of a monster. Worst of all had been the huge red mouth with overlapping lips that dripped saliva.

    ”Stay back on the stairs,”Noel told her. Even though he kept the muzzle of the pistol pointing downward, she heard the click as he drew back the hammer.

    ”Noel. Don't open the door.”

    ”It's OK, Robyn.”

    ”I know what's out there. It's the thing that attacked me.”

    ”Stay back,”he whispered. ”I'll just open the door a couple of inches.”This time he raised the pistol so it pointed at the door.

    ”Noel, please. It's that thing. Keep the door locked.”

    ”If it is, it'll save me hunting the bastard down.”Noel opened the door.

    From where she was standing, she couldn't see who'd been knocking on the door. But she saw Noel flinch backward with a startled, ”Oh, my God.”

    Without thinking she bounded down the stairs to be at Noel's side in case he needed her. When she saw the caller she stopped dead, too.

    ”Ellery,”she breathed. ”My God. What on earth happened to you?”

    

    

    ”This is turning into a hospital emergency room,”Noel said with a tight smile as Robyn worked on Ellery. ”Robyn last night. Ellery this morning.”

    ”I-I'm s-sorry to bother you,”Ellery said.

    Robyn shushed him. ”No problem. Tilt your head back to the light. There… it looks worse than it is.”She wiped from his mouth the bloodstain that formed a red-brown beard pattern. It was the blood smeared there that had led to her mistaking Ellery for the creature with the multilipped mouth. Ellery's eye was also swelling from a blow that had left a vertical split in his eyebrow.

    Noel shook his head. ”These guys that did this to you, Ellery you've got to report them to the police.”

    Ellery winced. ”No… no. Ei-it will owe… only make things w-worse.”

    ”Worse? They tried to kill you, Ellery. They split your lip open.”

    ”I-I did that myself. Jer-jumping onto a truck. Ankle, too.”

    Both Robyn and Noel had to help him walk. He'd yanked his ankle pretty badly The foot had swollen so much he'd been forced to remove his sneaker.

    ”I'll find the first-aid kit,”Noel told them. ”But you should reconsider about going to the cops. Those thugs don't deserve a second chance.”

    Robyn continued to gently sponge around the wounds as Noel went to retrieve the kit.

    ”They've done this before? ”she asked.

    ”Yes. A kid called Logan… he's not usually as bad as this. But he's setting up some drug deal close to where I work. As well as marking out his territory he's also proving to his buddies that he's a hard man.”

    Robyn looked at Ellery in something close to wonder. ”Ellery?”

    ”Hmm?”

    ”Your voice… you've lost your stammer!”

    Ellery's face registered surprise too. And when he spoke he phrased the words carefully, as if testing it out. ”I don't know why… I don't know why that is.” His face brightened into a smile as he realized the words were forming themselves perfectly. ”Maybe it's a day for miracles.”The smile broadened into a grin. He winced as the raw wound pulled. ”Ouch.”

    ”I wouldn't call being beaten a miracle.”

    He shrugged. ”I don't know. But it made me realize I had to come back here right away?' ”Why?”

    ”I don't know that either. It's strange but I know I have to be here.”

    She smiled. ”I got the same feeling when I saw this place for the first time. Maybe we're just a couple of dreamers.”

    He let his eyes travel around the room. ”There's something about the Luxor, isn't there, Robyn? There's a kind of beat in the air. Like a heartbeat. It feels as if the walls are coming alive.”

    ”It certainly got lively a while ago.”She shivered. ”Last night was something else.”

    ”Noel said that you had trouble. What was it?”

    ”I'll make a jug of coffee. It's a story and a half, believe me.”

    ”I've been coming here to the Luxor for years. There's a buzz about the place. And when I ss… sss-sit in the ch-chair I-I-”

    The moment that Noel returned with the first-aid box,

    Robyn noticed that Ellery's voice petered out into a welter of broken syllables and false starts. She also noticed the change in expression on Ellery's face as he realized the stammer was back. Clenching his fist against his lips, he suddenly fell silent. In fact, he said nothing for a full ten minutes as Robyn applied sticking plaster on the cut above his eye and gently rubbed cream into the grazes on his face.

    At last he took a deep breath, tensed as if forcing the words, then said, ”Than-Thank you.”

    Noel said, ”I don't keep my car here so I can't give you a lift, I'm afraid. But I could use my cell phone to call a taxi?”

    ”Nn… thanks.”He shook his head. ”Low-Logan. The guy who-who wants t-to scramble my fay-face knows where I… where I…” His voice jammed up tight.

    ”Knows where you live?”

    Ellery nodded. ”I nee… need to find a place to… to l-lie low for ah-ah-a while.”

    Robyn clapped her hands together. ”Problem solved,” she told him firmly ”You're going to stay here.”

    ”Here?” Noel echoed doubtfully.

    ”Why not? There's a spare room. We have food. Candles galore. Hey we've even got a place where we can go dancing right outside our front door.”

    The expression on Noel's face asked, Robyn, have you thought this through? Ellery Hann looked to be hugely relieved, as if this was what he wanted more than anything, but was afraid to ask.

    ”Of course Ellery should stay here. If this place is big enough to house two teenage runaways, it's big enough for a third.”She smiled. ”Isn't that so, Ellery?”

    Ellery smiled and nodded so vigorously it twinged his strained neck muscles. Rubbing his neck, though, he still continued to smile.

    ”I suppose-” Noel began.

    ”Besides,” Robyn told them, seeing the answer to a problem. ”With Ellery here to look after me there's nothing to stop you, Noel, from going to class.”

    

    

    Logan was pissed. ”I'm going to break Ellery Hann into pieces. He's never going to walk again this side of Christmas.”He looked at his buddies as they swaggered along Fairfax. ”He thinks he was smart getting away like that, but I know where the fuck lives.”

    ”If he's smart enough, he won't go back home in a hurry,” Joe said.

    ”Yeah, but I know something he doesn't.”
Logan smiled a cruel smile.”! know where he goes to hang out when he wants to
be alone: a dump across town.”He pulled a cigarette from the pack with his
lips. ”It's called the Luxor."

    

    

    Benedict West sat on the couch for a full hour after the videotape had played out to the end. The missing volume five. Made by the owner of the Luxor. For years Benedict had believed that tape five held the key to the mystery of Mariah Lee's disappearance. That belief had grown and grown until he half accepted that he shared the apartment with that belief like people share their homes with a pet. That it had acquired an independent life. The elusive missing tape had haunted his waking hours.

    Now that he'd finally found it and watched its contents flickering there like ghosts on TV, he knew that it would still continue to haunt his life, with a far greater power, and a darker power. He would give a million dollars not to do so, but he knew he had to watch the videotape again, and this time make notes. The contents of the tape were important. What's more, Benedict West knew that lives depended on his ability to understand what that flickering footage contained.

    After rewinding the tape, he pressed the play button. This is what Benedict saw:

    

    

    We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been.

    Benedict West sat forward on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees, the palms of his hands pressed together, the two forefingers touching his lips. He looked like a man on the verge of contemplative prayer. As if he was about to ask divine protection from what would emerge on the TV screen.